Are you a power-user with 5 minutes to spare? Do you want a faster internet experience?

Try out namebench. It hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation. namebench is completely free and does not modify your system in any way. This project began as a 20% project at Google.

namebench runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and UNIX, and is available with a graphical user interface as well as a command-line interface.

"We have placed Galaxy 15 in safe mode, and at this time, we are pleased to report it no longer poses any threat of satellite interference to either neighboring satellites or customer services," Intelsat officials announced.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Researchers led by Ronald A. DePinho, a Harvard Medical School professor of genetics, say their work shows for the first time a dramatic reversal of many aspects of age-related degeneration in mice, a milestone in aging science achieved by engineering mice with a controllable telomerase gene.

Friday, November 26, 2010

DiskMax * Disk Cleanup and Windows Performance Optimization - Software - Koshy John: "DiskMax is a powerful disk cleanup and Windows performance optimization application. Download and run it just once - the difference will be instantly noticeable. Your system will be peppier, applications will launch faster, files will open quicker, games will run better, and you will be much happier for it. Running DiskMax from time to time is recommended to keep your system in shape."

Monday, November 22, 2010

1. Never modify the interface on a server or network device you're currently connected toWhile this may sound like a no-brainer, it's amazing how often someone modifies the properties of the network interface they're using to communicate with the device, a practice that has a high failure rate. At times, it may be the only option, but if there's a way to eliminate this potential pitfall, do it. Configure a secondary IP on an interface if you have to -- connect through another device or subnet, serial console, KVM, whatever. This is especially true if the device is in a remote office without on-site IT staff.

Occasionally, when I'm feeling relatively lazy, I'll write a script to change the IP on a Linux box, do a ping test, and revert the change if something goes wrong. But that's cheating, sort of.

2. Always have a way to get back to where you startedWhenever possible, provide a way to get back to the original problem, whether that means imaging a failing disk before working on it, backing up an entire directory structure in case there are files you aren't aware of that you'll need later, or simply pulling one disk of a RAID1 array on a physical server before you mess with a borked operating system. Naturally, this comes easier in virtual machine environments where you can simply take a snapshot.

3. Document, document, documentOf all these rules, this one may be the least followed. To be sure, documenting a problem and a resolution when you're in the middle of a chaotic situation may not be practical. That said, always hold a postmortem on the problem when the dust settles and go over the steps taken and the path to the solution. Write it down. Keep it safe somewhere, preferably on a wiki hosted on your intranet -- and backed up to several other places.

4. There's no magic in IT, but there is luckAs Thomas Jefferson said, "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." The same is true in IT. The more time you spend researching aspects of your infrastructure, noting certain operating conditions of routers, switches, servers, and whatnot, the more in tune with your infrastructure you become. That homework allows you to sniff out problems in their very early stages and to move far quicker when the game's afoot. Also, there are plenty of ways to manufacture luck in IT. For example, use tools that automate network device configuration backups; that way, when a switch loses its mind, you can have it back up in minutes, not hours.

5. Make a backup of every configuration file before you modify itThis rule tends to apply only to Unix servers and network devices where configuration files exist for nearly all aspects of the device configuration. Before you go mucking around with sensitive configurations, save a copy to flash on a switch and maybe one to a TFTP host. On Unix systems, simply cp something.conf to something.conf.orig.

In a pinch, reverting to prior known-good status is as simple as copying the file back and restarting the service. This generally isn't possible on Windows, due to the registry and Windows' proclivity to complicate simple concepts. Even so, you can sometimes export a portion of the registry before messing with it so that it can be reapplied if all hell breaks loose. Note: As with all matters regarding the Windows registry, you take the life of the server in your hands when you make changes.

6. Monitor, monitor, monitorAn ounce of prevention is worth a month of work weekends. You should monitor every aspect of your data center, beginning with the temperatures of the room, the racks, and the servers -- plus, server process checks, uptime checks, ad infinitum. You should also implement centralized syslogging of all network devices, as well as set up trending and graphing tools to monitor bandwidth utilization, temperatures, disk partition use, and other datapoints. All of these monitors should alert you by any means necessary when they exceed reasonable thresholds.

When a database gets corrupted because a partition filled up, an email or SMS an hour before would have saved untold hours of work and downtime. There's no reason to put off monitoring your data center to the hilt.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

AM-DeadLinkdetects dead links and duplicates in browser bookmarks and text files. If a bookmark has become unavailable you can verify and delete it permanently. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks.

MyEventViewer is a simple alternative to the standard event viewer of Windows. As oppose to Windows event viewer, MyEventViewer allows you to watch multiple event logs in one list, as well as the event description and data are displayed in the main window, instead of opening a new one. Also, with MyEventViewer you can easily select multiple event items and then save them to HTML/Text/XML file, or copy them to the clipboard (Ctrl+C) and then paste them into Excel.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Should I remove older versions of Java?

We highly recommend users remove all older versions of Java from your system. Keeping old and unsupported versions of Java on your system presents a serious security risk.Removing older versions of Java from your system ensures that Java applications will run with the most up-to-date security and performance improvements on your system.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Countries join forces to save life on Earth

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Saturday, 30 October 2010

A historic deal to halt the mass extinction of species was finally agreed last night in what conservationists see as the most important international treaty aimed at preventing the collapse of the world's wildlife.

Delegates from more than 190 countries meeting in Nagoya, Japan, agreed at the 11th hour on an ambitious conservation programme to protect global biodiversity and the natural habitats that support the most threatened animals and plants.

After 18 years of debate, two weeks of talks, and tense, last-minute bargaining, the meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity agreed on 20 key "strategic goals" to be implemented by 2020 that should help to end the current mass extinction of species.

CCEnhancer is a small tool which adds support for over 270 new programs into the popular program CCleaner. The tool uses the WinApp2.ini system built into CCleaner to easily add new rules and definitions for programs. The rules were sourced mainly from the Piriform Support Forum, with several sourced from other places around the internet.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Has your computer been acting funny, crashing, running slow, or displaying unusual error messages? Have you been promiscuously clicking on Web links and opening up attachments from strangers? You could have a malware infection.

As part of a recent upgrade, Facebook users have astonishingly noticed that the “Clear Chat History” feature which was part of the social networking website’s instant messaging component is no longer an option.

Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- A Nepalese teen who is the size of a toddler turned 18 on Thursday and entered the record books as the world's shortest man.

Khagendra Thapa Magar is 67.08 centimeters (26.4 inches) and weighs 6.5 kilograms (13 pounds), said Marco Frigatti, vice president of records at Guinness World Records, who flew in from London for the recognition.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Creativity and innovation are great, but only of you execute and push your ideas to completion! Here are some tips on this very topic from Behance:

There are too many ideas in the world, and not enough action. If we consider every idea as part of a project - and then consider all we must do to manage our various projects, we realize the many challenges standing in the way of productivity. The Behance team believes that organization and productivity ultimately determine whether a brilliant idea ever actually happens. They have interviewed hundreds of the most productive individuals and teams in the world, and have discovered best practices across industries for managing everyday creative projects.

Our years of research have caused us to question the status quo of making ideas happen:

•What if compulsive filing yields little benefit?

•What if priority matters more than context?

•What if the success of every project (and life) ultimately comes down to organizing actions you must take?

•What if the design of the method we use for productivity influences our psychology for getting stuff done?

Friday, September 10, 2010

In fear of drive-by downloads of nasty adware, spyware, and virusesAnxious about scareware and ransomwareTrying to stay safe on social networking sitesConcerned about online predators and identity thievesScattering secrets to the wind in favorite hot spotsShopping online without protectionUnsure of the risks about webcams and sextingDealing with cyberbullies at home or in schoolBlogging alone and in the darkYou can download your copy free from Microsoft download center.

According to thesereports, authorities in fourteen countries have conducted raids on an untold number of file sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay. The news reports go on to say that the site hosting Wikileaks has also been taken down although the authorities claim they were not the target of the raids.

Cleaning up an unknown Windows system requires three steps, performed in this order:

1. Security 2. Anonymization 3. Performance tuning

This article discusses security and anonymization. Next month's article covers performance tuning. This article is based on my free guide How To Secure Windows and Your Privacy. The guide was published two years ago but is still relevant to cleaning up Windows. I'll leave out the screen illustrations in the guide, as well as its more detailed techniques.

We'll cover the highlights here. The goal is to answer this question -- how can you secure a Windows computer about which you can make no assumptions?

Sunday, September 05, 2010

How to Enable Integrated PDF Reader in Google Chrome 6: "Integrated PDF reader is one of the exciting features of the latest stable release of Google Chrome 6. This feature will help you to read PDF files without downloading them to your computer.However, integrated PDF reader is disabled by default. You need to enable this feature to view PDF file."

Sunday, August 22, 2010

"Last year, a highly-biased government panel pulled a snow job that would make the Tobacco Industry proud: They claimed that Bisphenol A is not a cause for concern two weeks after scientists issued a damning report about the chemical. Their trickery bought the chemical industry months of slack, until the Canadian government announced that it may ban baby bottles made from the questionable substance. Soon thereafter, Wal-Mart announced that it would no longer stock polycarbonate baby bottles and Nalgene Outdoor Products agreed to stop making their trademark water bottles."

This amazing video really gets going at the 1:50 mark, so skip ahead to then. It's pretty hypnotic, isn't it? Of course, you wouldn't want to be up there with in on such a journey. Thank goodness for the wonder of YouTube."

In fact, according to the document, in 2009 'download speeds experienced by US consumers appear to lag advertised speeds by roughly 50 per cent.' As in ISPs were telling people they were getting speeds to the tune of 7-8 Mbps (or megabit-per-second), when they were really getting 3-4 Mbps."

"Laser MicroscopeAfter witnessing the image of a mosquito in a laser beam outside, I decided to investigate the phenomenon further. I started by locating scuzzy water. Ponds lacking, I decided to take water out of the bowl of my 6 year old spider plant. I then filled a syringe and hung it above a laser so that a drop of water, almost ready to fall, was in the beam path. Below is the incredibly complex apparatus involving a book, sticky-tac, a random bottle, a 250mW laser, and a syringe."

The league will change its regular-season tiebreaking system for 2010-11, an NHL source told ESPN.

The first tiebreaker will be a combination of regulation time and overtime victories, with shootout wins excluded. In the past, the first tiebreaker had been total wins of any kind.

Columbus GM Scott Howson proposed the change at the NHL general managers meetings in Florida last March. The league's Board of Governors and Competition Committee both voted to implement the change for the upcoming season.

"I'm very happy about the change," said Red Wings GM Ken Holland, who'd been a vocal proponent for just such a move. "This puts more emphasis on the 60 [or 65] minutes."

The league is making the adjustment to give more weight to victories gained in some form of team play, rather than by shootout.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Courthouse News Service: "PHILADELPHIA (CN) - A man shopping for a ribbon at a Dollar Tree store claims a rat nesting in the ribbon box bit him on the finger, and held on so hard he had to shake it off. And when an assistant manager came and moved the box, 'three more rats jumped out at the assistant, causing the assistant to run and stand behind the store manager,' the shocked shopper claims in state court."

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Courthouse News Service: "CIGNA employees taunted them with 'lewd and obscene' gestures during a rally for health-care reform. The parents say CIGNA did not approve their daughter's treatment until company bosses saw a previous protest, on behalf of their daughter, on national TV. But it was too late - their daughter died that day."

Saturday, August 07, 2010

If you have noticed that your Windows 7 system has become sluggish and slow to respond, you may have tried defragging your hard drive to fix it. If this doesn’t help, the problem could be a slow performing index.

NEW YORK — Haitian-American hip hop star and humanitarian activist Wyclef Jean will announce his bid for his native country's presidency this week, CNN reported on Tuesday.
Wyclef, whose interest in the post has been rumored in recent weeks, will make the announcement on CNN's "Larry King Live" show on Thursday, the cable network said quoting a source close to the recording artist.
Current President Rene Preval is barred by the constitution from seeking a new term in the elections scheduled for November 28.

(CN) - A water district employee who said "hello" to a co-worker by shaking his butt might be entitled to workers' compensation benefits after the co-worker accidentally hit him with a truck trying to return the unusual greeting, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled.
Norman Vegors and Casey Byrd worked for the Xenia Rural Water District, and they sometimes acknowledged each other in odd ways, such as by waving the boom of a track hoe at each other.
One day, Vegors' hands were full, so he wiggled his butt at Byrd to say hello. Byrd tried to respond by tapping Vegors with his truck's mirror, but he accidentally hit Vegors with the truck bed instead.
Xenia contested Vegors' workers' compensation claim on the grounds that Vegors had been engaging in horseplay.
The trial court agreed with Xenia and reversed Vegors' award.
But the state Supreme Court overturned the decision and sent the case back to the workers' compensation board for a determination of whether Vegors' butt-shaking had been in the course of his employment.

Friday, July 23, 2010

MANHATTAN (CN) - The Naked Cowboy, an underwear-clad, guitar-toting fixture in Times Square, has sued the Naked Cowgirl, claiming she is trying to "cheat the system" by performing on his beat in "virtually identical" costume - though she also wears a "brazier." "Each day she goes into Times Square, she is cheating a system that is supposed to protect intellectual property rights. This is not fair and is un-American," the Naked Cowboy says in his federal trademark complaint.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Computer scientist Alan Mislove at Northeastern University in Boston and colleagues have found that these 'tweets' suggest that the west coast is happier than the east coast, and across the country happiness peaks each Sunday morning, with a trough on Thursday evenings. The team calls their work the 'pulse of the nation'.

With its epicenter near Germantown in Montgomery County, the quake was felt by as many as 3 million people in the Mid-Atlantic region, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The 5 a.m. earthquake was felt as far away as south-central New Jersey, as well as in Washington, Northern Virginia, southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. People in Columbia, Owings Mills, Carroll County and Odenton reported the quake was enough to rattle household items and send pets into a tizzy."

Thursday, July 15, 2010

"Moscow, Russia (CNN) -- More than 1,000 Russians have drowned recently as they attempted to find relief from a stifling heat wave -- many of them after drinking alcohol, officials said."

Vadim Seryogin, a department head at Russia's Emergencies Ministry, told reporters Wednesday that 49 people, including two children, had drowned in the last day. More than 1,200 total have drowned, 223 of them between July 5 and July 12.

The heat has exacerbated a smog problem, as well, the RIA-Novosti column said, adding Russia has not experienced such heat in 130 years. Winter and spring crops are withering under the heat, the column said.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

WebMatrix is everything you need to build Web sites using Windows. It includes IIS Developer Express (a development Web server), ASP.NET (a Web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). It streamlines Web site development and makes it easy to start Web sites from popular open-source apps. The skills and code you develop with WebMatrix transition seamlessly to Visual Studio and SQL Server.

Monday, July 05, 2010

"DETROIT -- Retired hockey enforcer Bob Probert, as adept with his fists as with a stick in a 16-season career with the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks, died Monday after suffering chest pains while boating with his family. He was 45."

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Beginning on July 17, 2010, all residents in the 715 area code must use the new 10-digit dialing procedure for all local calls. This applies to landline phones and cell phones. After this date, local calls made without the area code will not complete and a recording will instruct callers to hang up and dial again.

Apparently this started late last year and we should have been dialing the 10 digits for the past 10 months or so.

"The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress."

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Courthouse News Service: "LOS ANGELES (CN) - A public radio reporter took the witness chair in the ongoing trial over a violent police break-up of media coverage during an immigration rally, testifying that a Los Angeles policeman first hit her in the back with his baton. When she turned and asked him why, he said, 'Shut up,' and wacked her just above the knee with such force that she spun 360 degrees and fell to the ground, with her cellphone flying over her head. She crawled 15 feet to escape.

A videotape of former LAPD Chief William Bratton was also played for the jury, with Bratton testifying that the police action on May Day three years ago, where police officers charged through reporters and demonstrators while swinging batons, was the most embarrassing moment of his 37-year career as a policeman.

In her live testimony, Patricia Nazario, a reporter with Pasadena-based public radio station KPCC, described a May Day demonstration over immigration policy as an urban war zone."

Flying car production rolls forward - CNN.com: "(CNN) -- A highway-worthy airplane moves one step closer to production with a recent weight exemption approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. The Transition Roadable Aircraft, developed by Massachusetts-based engineering firm Terrafugia, will be allowed a maximum takeoff weight of 1,430 pounds, the same allowance made for aircraft designed to operate on water."

On July 6th 2010, we will let our computers randomly pick the winners from all our existing e-mail newsletter subscribers and announce the six happy winners. The winners will be contacted via the e-mail address they used to subscribe in order to clarify the procedure of getting the prizes.

The domain, which would need further approval before going live on the internet, would be applied to adult entertainment sites just as '.com' is now.The .xxx internet suffix, which was first proposed six years ago by ICM Registry, a group that sells domain names, 'will provide a place online for adult entertainment providers and their service providers who want to be part of our voluntary self regulatory community.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Former Chinese Nuclear Site Now a Tourist Attraction | Secrecy News: "“Underground facilities are being used to conceal and protect critical activities that pose a threat to the United States,” according to a 1999 report from the JASON defense advisory panel. “The proliferation of such facilities is a legacy from the [first] Gulf War: a lesson from this war was that almost any above-ground facility is vulnerable to attack and destruction by precision guided weapons.� To counter this vulnerability, many countries have moved their assets underground.”"

Monday, June 21, 2010

XPS files or XML Paper Specification files, are Microsoft's direct competitor to Adobe's PDF format. XPS Viewer is the tool used to view XPS files, similar to Adobe Reader. While XPS might not be as popular as PDF, it is used by certain people. For those of you who use it, I've decided to show what are the main qualities of the XPS format, how to create one and how to work with the XPS Viewer, which is available in all versions of Windows 7.

Friday, June 18, 2010

IT Hell: How the Recession Has Affected IT JobsReaders share their tales of woe, survival and redemption from the great recession.

By Doug Barney•06/01/2010

John Doe had what he thought was a terrific job -- director of IT services at a Canadian college -- but then a new college president came in, changed the school's mandate and forced the IT department to cut spending from $8 million to a crippling $6 million a year. It was a 25 percent cut in one whack. At the same time, the IT staff was reorganized and services were cut.

Doe moved on and became manager of IT operations for a small 6-year-old company that dealt with hospitals. The IT operations were "extremely efficient," according to Doe, but not efficient enough for senior management, which hired an outsider as CIO, bypassing Doe's then boss, the IT director. Then things went south.

"Uh oh. 'The Sun is waking up from a deep slumber,' NASA 's Richard Fisher says. It looks like old Sol is going to be in a cranky mood when it becomes fully awake, ready to wreak havoc on gadgets across the globe. Could this be the 2012 disaster superstitious fraidy-cats are babbling about?"

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Bootable Linux Live CDs such as those offered by Ubuntu and Mint are a great way to try Linux without interfering with your Windows installation. They are also a handy tool to have on hand as they give you access to your Windows data without the need for Windows. This can be invaluable should your Windows system become unbootable or infected by difficult-to-remove malware.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

In all of the extensive research for WantToKnow.info, a few superb summaries have stood out for the breadth and depth of information covered. The engaging summaries below are quite different from each other, yet they are each highly informative in revealing differing angles and aspects of what is going on behind the scenes on the stage of world politics. We must caution, however, that much of the information below does not measure up to the standards of reliability and verifiability normally adhered to on our website. Please consider these summaries as powerful food for thought and discard whatever portions do not work for you.

Friday, June 04, 2010

"Dear valued cashback customer: We are writing to notify you that the Bing cashback program will be discontinued, and the last day to earn cash back on your Bing Shopping purchases will be July 30, 2010."

It really doesn’t matter what your website or blog is about, nothing makes it look nicer than really good, professional quality photographs. Unfortunately, professional level photographs can sometimes be downright expensive. Luckily, like most everything else, beautiful looking stock photos can be found for free on the internet. You just need to know where to look. So, that being said, let’s take a look at 8 places to get free stock photos for your website.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

When storms are in your area it is important to disconnect from the internet and turn your computer off. To completely protect your computer, it is advised to completely unplug your computers power cables from the wall outlet.

Also it is advisable to unplug the telephone line from the wall jack as well if you computer connects to the internet via your telephone line. Most users forget this step and their modem is damaged by a lightning strike.

Once your computer is completely unplugged it should be relatively safe from potential power surges across the power lines and telephone lines in your home.

After the storm has passed you can then plug your computer's power and telephone line again and use your computer as normal.

One of my THREE must have Chrome extensions, this is the must-have-one!

chrome-reload - Project Hosting on Google Code: "Chrome-Reload is an extension for the Chrome web browser to allow automatic periodic reloading of a page. It allows the you to configure how often each page reloads and see a count-down until the next load."

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Download details: DLL Inuse Utility for Replacing a DLL In Use by Operating System (inu_x86.exe): "Inuse.exe provides individuals and administrators with 'on-the-fly' capability to replace files that are currenly in use by the operating system. Although this behavior is generally accomplished by running a program's setup program or a service pack's upgrade program, the setup and upgrade process tends to replace multiple files. However, for troubleshooting purposes, you may need to replace an individual file on your computer versus an entire set of files."

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

"To choose just one of the many dramatic examples from the AUDIO LETTERseries, consider the Guyana Massacre at Jonestown in November, 1978. Fromstart to finish, the Guyana story was filled with anomalies, unansweredquestions, conflicting government statements, and news reports that did notquite add up."

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Our team has one simple mission: provide complete tutorials for Windows 7. We want to offer quality, not quantity. You might see our site updating less often than others but that's because we will do our best to offer quality articles.

Friday, April 16, 2010

You can use any computer with Internet connection to get started with Fix it Center. Simply download the Fix it Center client and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup. You can install Fix it Center client on as many PCs you like.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Optimize your computer for peak performance: "Whenever a program crashes, or you experience some power outage, your computer may create errors on your computer's hard disk. Over time, the errors can slow your computer. Luckily, the Windows operating system includes a Disk Check program to check and clean any errors on your computer and keep it running smoothly."

Monday, March 22, 2010

"If you’re a tech geek who longs for the past, the iMac steampunk mod above should cater to your fashionable hypocrisy. Hand crafted with oak and brass, the base cover sports a marble finish and will take you just “seconds” to install on your iMac, according to its maker Old Time Computer.

Covers are available for the 24-inch and 20-inch Core 2 Duo iMacs, starting at $265. (The antique keyboard ships separately for $345.)"